Wood storage design for a garage shop

I’m wanting to get more organized and take the wood that I currently have leaning against my garage wall (sheets, 2x’s, 1x’s scrap, you name it) and build a lumber storage rack. I’m thinking of a vertical storage rack design but I’m not for sure yet. I’ve been milling some of my own lumber with a chainsaw mill of which I’ve been drying in my wood hut outside next to the garage. I also buy my own lumber when needed. I know that the local shop (http://woodworkersshop.com/) stores their lumber in this fashion. But I friend of mine mentioned he wasn’t sure about longer term storage vertically for keeping wood from warping. I know when I initially dry wood that I’ve cut I do the typical horizontal stack and stickering using the weight of the lumber to weigh down the stack. But after wood has done most of it’s drying outside, wouldn’t a vertical rack be ok for my garage? Thoughts? (Sidenote: my garage is not yet finished inside. Just bare studs and no insulation)

5 replies so far

For short term storage you could store it vertically, but I would advise against it for any long term. Also your more apt to draw in moisture from the bottom end grain which could lead to cupping and warping. The fact that your garage isn’t climate controlled also will effect your lumber through humidity changes. The stores can get away with vertically stacking lumber because of how quick they move it through sales but if you look in the warehouse or yard you will find it is horizontally stacked as well. If space is a issue you might consider overhead racks hanging from the ceiling or above the overhead door rails in a space that is generally thought of as dead space. Just my thoughts on the subject.

I’m fortunate to have a lot of space, so I store my boards horizontally on a wall rack and my sheet goods and cutoffs on a mobile cart. Take a look. The back side of the sheetgoods cart has bins for the cutoffs.

Well, after my research and tip from others I found that everyone is mixed on this issue. So I ended up going with my vertical rack idea. It’s 10-foot long and about 2-foot deep. Not a giant rack but I have a 2-car garage to share with 2 vehicles so I was limited on space. I still need to build a scrap cart and another small rack for smaller stock but the bulk of my lumber is now in the new rack. Also, I plan to build a pull out cart for sheet goods that will nest behind the rack (the 7 degree slope will allow for the nesting space behind). It looks full already but the 4 far left rows of hard maple and walnut as well as the cherry slabs in the middle will disappear this winter when I start building my workbench.

One thing to add to the discussion about how dry lumber should be, specifically to store vertically. I just got a Wagner meter this past week and took readings on the walnut, maple, red oak and cherry in my rack. Everything is from 10-14% moisture content right now so I don’t think most of it is going to move all that much more. Besides everything will end up going thru my jointer/planer anyways.